On the 10

The other day I ditched my family and went to Cabazon Premium Outlets all by myself. Loner? Hardly. Fabulous? Absolutely! I mean, you have to be serious about the art of shopping to drive an hour in the pouring rain halfway to Indio to go shopping at an outlet mall all by yourself. It also helped that I am trying to assert my independence. Because I am a grown up and no, mom, I don’t know what time I will be home. Yes, mom, I will try to be home for dinner. Yes, just try. Well, I’m not going to promise. Because I am a grown up. Frick.

On my way home from shopping and buying some phenomenal things, like jeans, I enjoyed my drive home because billboards lining freeways used primarily by truckers are fantastic. I mean, sure you have your fair share of “gentleman’s clubs” where men can stop their trucks and, to quote my favorite icon Elizabeth Lemon of 30 Rock, “let’s go watch some mothers and daughters!”. But you also have some $2.99 breakfast deals at places called “Three Sisters” and pictures of huge hamburgers with little phrases underneath petitioning, “can you taste it?”. No, I can’t. Because this is a billboard.

But besides that, I had the opportunity to see all sorts of things that brought down that proverbial “memory lane”. For example, I drove around a certain bend where I have a distinct memory of my dad taking me to a regional spelling bee when I was in second grade. I wasn’t technically in the spelling bee. I was runner-up in my school’s competition but I had to be at this event because the girl who was competing was straight up crazy and couldn’t be trusted to handle the pressure of something as epic as a regional spelling bee. However, she did compete, and rather pathetically too, if I may be so bold. But, I guess she was allowed to compete because it was me who lost my school’s bee by misspelling Wedneasday. I mean, Weddnesdae. Wed…nes…day.

At one point in my drive home, I saw a sign for Oak Glen and that reminded me of one of my favorite memories of my mom.

One thing you have to know about my mom is that before she married my dad and became a mother, she was a historian. Or a teacher. A history teacher? Well, that’s not important (as are all facts and truths about mothers before you were born). All I care about is that her womb was hospitable enough for me to come around. The point is that my mom loves history. So it was no surprise that she was super excited to find out that Riley’s Farm in Oak Glen was having a Civil War re-enactment. As a pre-pubescent girl who was still into American Girl Dolls, I was her only kid willing to do that kind of thing so off she and I went to watch some people shoot each other with blanks in period clothing. It actually ended up being closely related to a good time. Apparently there is a whole sub-culture of people who spend their lives in tents, in period clothing, making bread the hard way (i.e.: not at the store) and knitting around a fire while normal people come and watch them. Well, that’s the women at least. The men also live in tents, dress in period clothing, eat meat cooked over a fire in tin pans, take care of horses and then shoot each other with blanks. Oh, that’s the life! (?) I guess the only thing that would be appealing about that lifestyle is that you don’t have to work. Although I think these people might have normal jobs and just do this on the weekends. So really, there is nothing appealing about this life.

But I did enjoy going with my mom. I mean, I was one of six kids and my mom and I were hanging out all day at a place where people were knitting by fires just like my American Girl Dolls. The best part of the day, at least from my more grown-up perspective, came during the battle re-enactment. Since this was the Civil War, (not the Revolutionary War! Don’t be a fool!) the two groups of people were divided between blue coats and grey coats. I don’t know who chooses to live in a tent on the weekends and then volunteers to be on the decidedly asinine pro-slavery group. I mean, not only was this group all for the enslavement of an entire people group for their own selfish gains but they also lost. How is that appealing, 20^th century mail-carrier by week, re-enactor by weekend? But someone has to do it (note: this is reasoning that leads bright and eager children to become cremators). During the battle scene, which we as the audience watched from a safe distance behind a fence at the bottom of the hill, the blanks would fire and pre-determined soldiers would fall to their quiet, somber deaths. It was at this point that my mother, ever the educator, leaned over and quietly said in my ear, “It would never be this quiet in a real battle. Those men who just got shot would be screaming and there would blood. A lot of blood”. She then stood back up and resumed watching the re-enactment. I, too, turned back to the battle and tried to picture what the actual battle would be like. After a moment of imaging the last man who fell to be laying on the ground crying for his mother, I was glad that these re-enactors had chosen the more palatable route of a silent, and peaceful, battle scene. Because, as everyone knows, after the battle all the men lying in the field would stand up, brush off their coats, and join their wives at the costume ball in the big white house.